Media Coverage
It is very hard to actually look forward to a league of Ireland match considering it’s not really hyped up and almost shoved down our throat like other big events. For example Cork City vs. Dundalk was on 2 weeks ago in a title decider, yet very little was publicised about this. In fact much of the hype was about Man United vs. Liverpool. Any coverage the League of Ireland does get is usually quite poor and is poorly presented to the customers. For instance an EPL match such as Stoke vs. West Brom can be greatly exaggerated and sensationalised to make it seem like an interesting showdown when in reality the likelihood is that it’s going to be a dreary game. Why isn’t this done for League of Ireland? Very little is actually known about the players from league of Ireland. Like this season we have Dundalk in the Europa League and we are getting a better idea of who the players are and their qualities. This is because of good coverage from BT sport. Seeing Dundalk on such a mega platform such as BT sport gives us better insight into the players of Dundalk. Dundalk have Ireland talking about them, their style of football and their players.
Quality of our game
Structure of our league
As it stands out league is in a bad state. Lack of funding and lack of coverage is causing the league to be unpopular. Increased funding would see an improvement in the quality of our league as it would give our players, and future players an incentive to want to play the league. Better quality media coverage of the League of Ireland will see more people talking about the league, hence increasing popularity of the league. The quality of media coverage at the moment is not good enough and needs to improve. Our radio, TV, and social media is not good enough. Overall the league is unpopular, but I do feel changes to how its presented to fans could change that. As mentioned above Dundalk have everybody talking about League of Ireland again. That’s all we need, people talking about us again.
Author: Daniel Ryan
4th Year BBS (Hons) in Recreation and Sport Management